This invention refers to a controlled output automatic product dispensing machine.
For large-volume packaged consumer products, such as cans, bottles, foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals and the like, automatic machines are available for dispensing said products after a user""s selection and subsequent payment.
At this time and following the user""s selection and payment of a certain available product, these machines internally locate the chosen product, which is arranged in an appropriate drawer of an internal shelf of the machine. The machine then allows it to drop by gravity into an underlying collecting pocket, whence the user retrieves it by hand.
The pocket is closed by an openable door, such as for instance a push-in door, and provides for a simple anti-intrusion system preventing a manual access to the dispenser""s internal drawers.
In the described system, the products paid out from the topmost internal drawers, especially those of a more delicate nature, may obviously encounter considerable dispensing problems.
In addition to the possible jamming of the selected product during its descent, there""s a risk of damaging the product itself, glass bottles for instance, due to its falling height.
Moreover, even cans of carbonated drinks suffer some considerable shaking-up while falling, so that at their subsequent opening the internally compressed gas induces a partial spillage of the beverage.
The general purpose of this invention it to prevent the uncontrolled payout of the products dispensed by an automatic machine, which may jam while falling toward the collecting pocket, or suffer damage while falling into the collecting pocket itself.
Another purpose is to develop an anti-intrusion system in the collecting pocket, capable of preventing the access to the product carrying drawers.
In view of the mentioned purposes according to this invention, it was decided to produce a controlled output automatic product dispensing machine with the characteristics outlined in the attached claims.
The structural and functional characteristics of this invention and its advantages in comparison to the known art will become even clearer and better evident from a review of the following description in reference to the attached drawings, which illustrate a transport system in accordance with the innovative principles of the invention.